How To Love Actually

Love is a word that is thrown around a lot these days. I love that double chocolate ice cream, I love my TV, and I love YOU. Seems like the word has lost its meaning or we have forgotten what the word “love” actually means.

Compassion is the highest form of love. When you see two people who are passionately in love, it is a very raw energy. Passion is lust; this is why two lovers who are in love one day can quickly fall out of love.

When you learn to have conscious control of your passion, that same passionate energy is transformed into compassion.

Compassion is able to rise above egoist desires, greed, and anger. Becoming a true person of compassion makes you a blessing to yourself and anyone that you encounter.

So what happens when you get rid of your desires and become desireless? The energy that was consumed by your desires does not just simply go away. Energy cannot be destroyed; your newfound energy is then turned into compassion. You need all your vital energy because compassion is not something you can cultivate. Compassion has to be allowed to just happen through your being.

It is important to understand that any desire no matter what it is, is driven by motivation. Compassion has no motivation or goal; it is just a state of unconditional love. Usually, the closest thing we get to witness is the love of a mother for her child.

People who are truly compassionate want to help others achieve the same level of happiness and understanding they experience. Helping others becomes a joyful undertaking and not an inconvenience. They help to help, it’s not driven by personal gain. You learn that the more you give, the more you get.

If you observe someone who is compassionate you are able to see that they really accept others as they are, accepting their strengths and weaknesses. They understand that being compassionate does not make you higher than the next person. If you are not careful you will use the idea of compassion as an ego trip.

Compassion is to love unconditionally. Your love is not blind because you have cultivated alertness and awareness to the energies of your passions. Passion is biological and blind because it is dependent on other things. Compassion is spiritual and unconditional. You need the awareness to turn your passion into compassion.

All of the great teachers throughout time like Jesus and Buddha demonstrated compassion. They loved their disciples unconditionally, they were masters who wanted their students to become masters.

Meditation is Key:
Increase your awareness to become aware of the love found within you, a love of your inner being. Meditation is the key to becoming aware of your passions. Once you become aware of your passions, you turn them into compassion.

When you begin to meditate you will also become aware of any thoughts you deny. Anything that you deny creates tension; if you are to properly meditate you need to learn to relax. If you are to deeply relax you need to accept anything that you deny. If you come to find that little things easily disturb you, that’s a signal that your own attitude is disturbing and causing tension within you.

We are all one:
Living a life of compassion will lead you to immense gratitude for everything around you because you realize everything is connected and interrelated. One of my favorite things to do on a nice day is to go to a public park, pick a bench, and people-watch. I like to observe everything that is going around me, dogs barking, birds chirping, etc. Noticing how intensely alive everything is. Just being alive, learning to not be bogged down by the formalities of society.

To really help others you must first light the fire in yourself, then kindle the fire in others. First travel the path on your own, come to know it perfectly, and understand where it leads. Then you can take others on the path, otherwise, it is just the blind leading the blind, does not even matter if your intentions were good. A blind intent is motivated by personal gain.

To make love an actuality, for many of us, it will mean facing the fact that we have not really loved yet. Use this realization to begin loving yourself, only then will you be able to truly love someone else.

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